Adult Life-Skills 201: Landlord Communications
Hey Liberal Arts institutions of America? I want to talk to you about something. Kenyon, I know you're real smug about the fact that, last year, 39% of your incoming freshmen were in the top 5 % of their graduating high school classes. Your student body is very book-smart, I will give you that. But outside of academia? You and I both know that all kids living away from home for the first time are street-dumbasses. What your admissions web-page doesn't say is that probably about 25% of your incoming freshmen will try to clean their underwear with fabric softener for at least a semester and a half before someone tells them it's not soap.
I'm not saying we should ditch the whole liberal arts system. It was my honor and privilege to be educated in analysis, composition and discourse by some of the greatest English literature instructors in the country. It's just... I'm not going to unclog my shower drain by deconstructing Jane Austin's utilization of the pen as a phallic symbol at it.
Now I know I've lamented my unpreparedness for the adult world before. I mean, let's face it. Most of the time this blog is the lamentiest lament-fest that ever lamented the lament-ernet. I'd like to change that though. Maybe that's why I haven't updated this blog for so long. It may have looked like I was neglecting creative endeavors in favor of binging on Youtube clips of baby animals crawiling in and out of various dishwares, but maybe I was really pondering ways to make this blog a more constructive and positive space. Or, maybe I'm full of crap and you should just enjoy this rare moment of my being a "problem solver" -- as my mother would say -- while it lasts before I go back to ranking all the moles on my body from least to most likely to be cancerous. You pick. Either way, world, I'm about to blow your mind with my present problem solving skillz.
Here's my proposal: How about, in addition to Fine Arts, Humanities, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences, students also have to satisfy requirements in practical survival in the real world? Here are some sample course titles that you can have for free:“57 surfaces you didn't know you had to also clean”, “ Mold: it’s not just for food” and “Writing e-mails with real words only”. I know you're skeptical, but yes -- those ideas really are free! And, you know what? To show you that I'm serious about making this work for all of us, I'll even provide you with a whole sample blog-ture! (For you stuffy academic types, that's like a lecture, only on my blog. So it's still educational but, like, waaay hipper. And I know all about hip. Just ask my pal...um...Jay-Z. Edward Cullen? Miley Cyrus. hip things.)
Anyway! Without further adieu:
Lesson one: Landlord communications.
First, I know, I know. Most college courses are taught by people who have dedicated their entire adult lives to studying the topics they teach. Professors utilize their knowledge of statistics, case studies and the pulse of scholarly opinion to educate their students. And you know, good for them. I'm sure their "lifetimes of study" make for lectures that are total snooze fests. I mean...total information fests. But, what I offer is even better. I'm going to educate you with mistakes that I mySELF have JUST made! I'm 'bout to get REAL with you guys. Let me tell you what I've BEEN through! Case studies may have the "facts" on their side, but what about rawness? I eat case studies for breakfast.
Ahem. What? Anyway. Class, let me introduce you to our topic of study: The ever-mercurial American Landlord. (cue dimmed lights and slide show with pictures of generically slimy looking middle aged white men lazily copied and pasted from Google images -- Like this one!)
(fun fact: 98.2 percent of all landlords have creepy mustaches. Other fun fact: 100 percent of all mustaches are creepy.)
He owns your house, but he's not supposed to live in it with you. He's responsible for repairing your leaky pipes, but he will not scrub the pink ring your lavender-nectar goat-milk bath bomb left caked onto the tub. He'll probably come around to check on the unit you're renting every once in a while, and he has an emergency key to your house, but he is not your RA. If you dissolve into tears in his bean-bag chair over how your roommate got Ramen juice on your comforter AGAIN, he will not be helpful. He may call the police, actually. He'll be upset you if you do any permanent damage to his property, but he won't write you up if he finds jell-o shots in your fridge. It's all very nuanced and confusing, I know. So, unsurprisingly, it's pretty easy for landlord and tenant to misunderstand one another.
For example: My landlord's name is Steve Jones. Usually, I try to avoid using people's full names on this blog so as to protect their privacy (or so they don't find out I've been badmouthing them behind their backs when they Google themselves. One of the two. I forget which...) But, I figure I can make an exception in this case because Steve's name is so generic it sounds like he's a fictional person in a hypothetical scenario. My housemates and I met him shortly after we moved into our new house this year, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. Then, mice chewed holes through the walls, the shower turned lukewarm in the dead of winter, and pretty much the whole house started leaking. So, we contacted Steve Jones. Texting is his preferred mode of communication so we texted him things like, "Our whole house is leaking. Please fix it," and he texted things back like, "Will do! As soon as it stops raining. For 90 days. Or more." As the weeks went by, our relationship grew more gnarled with distrust and loathing with each pointed text message. Here is a rough re-counting of one exchange that sticks out in my memory:
Simunye House: Steve, Our garbage disposal is broken again and the sink has stopped draining. Please let us know when you can fix it.
Steve Jones: Won't be able to come until the weekend because of work. Last two times Garbage disposal stopped, there were things that weren't supposed to be there. First a screw, then a twist-tie. When we come to fix it, Someone should be there so we can show you how to fix it yourself next time.
Clearly, these are text messages sent between two parties who are doing a poor job of understanding one another. I can tell you that when we read this message and others like it, my housemates and I assumed that Steve Jones was a cheap, apathetic jerk who didn't care about our living conditions. Obviously, Steve Jones made some assumptions about us as well. So, let's do a little exercise to try to understand Steve's motivation for sending this message. Let's take a look a dinner table conversation at my house community through Steve's eyes:
*Alison: Hey, could you pass the fruit salad?
Angry at Steve for No Reason One: Sure, here you go.
Alison: Thanks for the salad, Angry at Steve for No Reason One. Hey! There's a screw in this salad!
Extra dumb one: Oh, Whoops! That must have fallen in when I got the drill mixed up with the hand mixer again! I guess I'll just shove it down the garbage disposal.
Whiny one: OK
Alison: Yes, do that.
Angry One: Sounds like a good plan. You Guys, I've been thinking. Obviously, it's cool to throw food, hardware, used sponges and plastic with recycling numbers one through eight down the garbage disposal like we've been doing, but here's my question: How can we break it quickly? I'm so excited to make our lame-lord to drive ALL the way down here for essentially no reason other than that I love inconveniencing him.
Dumb One: Heh. Lame-lord. Good one. We could try a twisty tie.
Angry one: Excellent idea.
Whiny one: ...Sigh.
Alison: What is it, whiny one?
Whiny One: Oh nothing. It's just that, lately, I've been having to take showers about two-and-a-half degrees lower than I like. And I mean, whatever. It's not a big deal...It's just that it's not exactly the way I want to start my day, you know?
Alison: No, no. I completely understand. In a world where so much is out of your control, you deserve to have showers your way. Have you tried waiting for the water to warm up for 30 seconds or so before you get in the shower?
Whiny one: Who do you think I am? Paris Hilton, woman of leisure? You think I have time to wait 30 seconds to get in the shower just because our pipes are "old"? I have, like, a job you know.
Angry one: Just text Steve. Who cares if he can fix it or not. I hope he's in a meeting right now and forgot to turn his phone off.
Alison: Oh, way ahead of you. I started composing a text message to Steve the minute you said, "sigh".
AND SCENE
*I figure Steve Jones doesn't know anyone's name in my house except for Alison, who was tasked at orientation with being the liaison between our house and our landlord. To him, the rest of us are probably just an indistinguishable mess of mostly girls.
I'm not saying we should ditch the whole liberal arts system. It was my honor and privilege to be educated in analysis, composition and discourse by some of the greatest English literature instructors in the country. It's just... I'm not going to unclog my shower drain by deconstructing Jane Austin's utilization of the pen as a phallic symbol at it.
Now I know I've lamented my unpreparedness for the adult world before. I mean, let's face it. Most of the time this blog is the lamentiest lament-fest that ever lamented the lament-ernet. I'd like to change that though. Maybe that's why I haven't updated this blog for so long. It may have looked like I was neglecting creative endeavors in favor of binging on Youtube clips of baby animals crawiling in and out of various dishwares, but maybe I was really pondering ways to make this blog a more constructive and positive space. Or, maybe I'm full of crap and you should just enjoy this rare moment of my being a "problem solver" -- as my mother would say -- while it lasts before I go back to ranking all the moles on my body from least to most likely to be cancerous. You pick. Either way, world, I'm about to blow your mind with my present problem solving skillz.
Here's my proposal: How about, in addition to Fine Arts, Humanities, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences, students also have to satisfy requirements in practical survival in the real world? Here are some sample course titles that you can have for free:“57 surfaces you didn't know you had to also clean”, “ Mold: it’s not just for food” and “Writing e-mails with real words only”. I know you're skeptical, but yes -- those ideas really are free! And, you know what? To show you that I'm serious about making this work for all of us, I'll even provide you with a whole sample blog-ture! (For you stuffy academic types, that's like a lecture, only on my blog. So it's still educational but, like, waaay hipper. And I know all about hip. Just ask my pal...um...Jay-Z. Edward Cullen? Miley Cyrus. hip things.)
Anyway! Without further adieu:
Lesson one: Landlord communications.
First, I know, I know. Most college courses are taught by people who have dedicated their entire adult lives to studying the topics they teach. Professors utilize their knowledge of statistics, case studies and the pulse of scholarly opinion to educate their students. And you know, good for them. I'm sure their "lifetimes of study" make for lectures that are total snooze fests. I mean...total information fests. But, what I offer is even better. I'm going to educate you with mistakes that I mySELF have JUST made! I'm 'bout to get REAL with you guys. Let me tell you what I've BEEN through! Case studies may have the "facts" on their side, but what about rawness? I eat case studies for breakfast.
Ahem. What? Anyway. Class, let me introduce you to our topic of study: The ever-mercurial American Landlord. (cue dimmed lights and slide show with pictures of generically slimy looking middle aged white men lazily copied and pasted from Google images -- Like this one!)
(fun fact: 98.2 percent of all landlords have creepy mustaches. Other fun fact: 100 percent of all mustaches are creepy.)
He owns your house, but he's not supposed to live in it with you. He's responsible for repairing your leaky pipes, but he will not scrub the pink ring your lavender-nectar goat-milk bath bomb left caked onto the tub. He'll probably come around to check on the unit you're renting every once in a while, and he has an emergency key to your house, but he is not your RA. If you dissolve into tears in his bean-bag chair over how your roommate got Ramen juice on your comforter AGAIN, he will not be helpful. He may call the police, actually. He'll be upset you if you do any permanent damage to his property, but he won't write you up if he finds jell-o shots in your fridge. It's all very nuanced and confusing, I know. So, unsurprisingly, it's pretty easy for landlord and tenant to misunderstand one another.
For example: My landlord's name is Steve Jones. Usually, I try to avoid using people's full names on this blog so as to protect their privacy (or so they don't find out I've been badmouthing them behind their backs when they Google themselves. One of the two. I forget which...) But, I figure I can make an exception in this case because Steve's name is so generic it sounds like he's a fictional person in a hypothetical scenario. My housemates and I met him shortly after we moved into our new house this year, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. Then, mice chewed holes through the walls, the shower turned lukewarm in the dead of winter, and pretty much the whole house started leaking. So, we contacted Steve Jones. Texting is his preferred mode of communication so we texted him things like, "Our whole house is leaking. Please fix it," and he texted things back like, "Will do! As soon as it stops raining. For 90 days. Or more." As the weeks went by, our relationship grew more gnarled with distrust and loathing with each pointed text message. Here is a rough re-counting of one exchange that sticks out in my memory:
Simunye House: Steve, Our garbage disposal is broken again and the sink has stopped draining. Please let us know when you can fix it.
Steve Jones: Won't be able to come until the weekend because of work. Last two times Garbage disposal stopped, there were things that weren't supposed to be there. First a screw, then a twist-tie. When we come to fix it, Someone should be there so we can show you how to fix it yourself next time.
Clearly, these are text messages sent between two parties who are doing a poor job of understanding one another. I can tell you that when we read this message and others like it, my housemates and I assumed that Steve Jones was a cheap, apathetic jerk who didn't care about our living conditions. Obviously, Steve Jones made some assumptions about us as well. So, let's do a little exercise to try to understand Steve's motivation for sending this message. Let's take a look a dinner table conversation at my house community through Steve's eyes:
*Alison: Hey, could you pass the fruit salad?
Angry at Steve for No Reason One: Sure, here you go.
Alison: Thanks for the salad, Angry at Steve for No Reason One. Hey! There's a screw in this salad!
Extra dumb one: Oh, Whoops! That must have fallen in when I got the drill mixed up with the hand mixer again! I guess I'll just shove it down the garbage disposal.
Whiny one: OK
Alison: Yes, do that.
Angry One: Sounds like a good plan. You Guys, I've been thinking. Obviously, it's cool to throw food, hardware, used sponges and plastic with recycling numbers one through eight down the garbage disposal like we've been doing, but here's my question: How can we break it quickly? I'm so excited to make our lame-lord to drive ALL the way down here for essentially no reason other than that I love inconveniencing him.
Dumb One: Heh. Lame-lord. Good one. We could try a twisty tie.
Angry one: Excellent idea.
Whiny one: ...Sigh.
Alison: What is it, whiny one?
Whiny One: Oh nothing. It's just that, lately, I've been having to take showers about two-and-a-half degrees lower than I like. And I mean, whatever. It's not a big deal...It's just that it's not exactly the way I want to start my day, you know?
Alison: No, no. I completely understand. In a world where so much is out of your control, you deserve to have showers your way. Have you tried waiting for the water to warm up for 30 seconds or so before you get in the shower?
Whiny one: Who do you think I am? Paris Hilton, woman of leisure? You think I have time to wait 30 seconds to get in the shower just because our pipes are "old"? I have, like, a job you know.
Angry one: Just text Steve. Who cares if he can fix it or not. I hope he's in a meeting right now and forgot to turn his phone off.
Alison: Oh, way ahead of you. I started composing a text message to Steve the minute you said, "sigh".
AND SCENE
Now, class, what have we learned from this exercise? If you think I am working up to a tidy resolution with this lecture, or some sort of abstract, sweeping "life lesson," you are sorely mistaken. What do you think this is, real school? I'm just here to talk to you straight about the real world, and the best piece of advice for you I can squeeze out of my experience is: don't communicate with your landlords through text messages. When you're working with a 160-character limit, a lot gets lost between the lines. A while back, Steve Jones came to visit us, and we had a pretty positive exchange. Face to face, we remember that Steve Jones doesn't spend all of his time stroking his white fluffy cat with his bionic claw arm while ignoring our text messages. And he can see for himself that we don't spend all of our time making out with Robert Pattinson posters while we inhale nail-polish remover fumes.
Class dismissed!
So, what did you think, Liberal Arts Colleges? It's OK if you can't let me know right away. I know an academic shift like the one I'm proposing would be a big step, so you're going to need to discuss it at length with your faculties and boards of trustees. You're going to have to work pretty hard to convince that one extra uptight old-lady trustee with the tweed skirtsuit and the pearls and the super-severe french roll in her hair and the poodle she carries around in her Berkin Bag who keeps talking about how this just isn't the way things are done here. (That's how boards of trustees work, right? I'm basing all my knowledge of the subject on the movie Tommy Boy, and the scenes with the stuffy grandparents in re-runs of Gilmore Girls so I'm just guessing here.) Anyway, the point is, I'm willing to wait as long as it takes. If you need me, I'll be right here every week (...to six months) with more free ideas you can use (maybe). We'll be in touch!
Class dismissed!
So, what did you think, Liberal Arts Colleges? It's OK if you can't let me know right away. I know an academic shift like the one I'm proposing would be a big step, so you're going to need to discuss it at length with your faculties and boards of trustees. You're going to have to work pretty hard to convince that one extra uptight old-lady trustee with the tweed skirtsuit and the pearls and the super-severe french roll in her hair and the poodle she carries around in her Berkin Bag who keeps talking about how this just isn't the way things are done here. (That's how boards of trustees work, right? I'm basing all my knowledge of the subject on the movie Tommy Boy, and the scenes with the stuffy grandparents in re-runs of Gilmore Girls so I'm just guessing here.) Anyway, the point is, I'm willing to wait as long as it takes. If you need me, I'll be right here every week (...to six months) with more free ideas you can use (maybe). We'll be in touch!
*I figure Steve Jones doesn't know anyone's name in my house except for Alison, who was tasked at orientation with being the liaison between our house and our landlord. To him, the rest of us are probably just an indistinguishable mess of mostly girls.
posted by Caitlin at 7:14 PM
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